Comments (1)Martin Brandon-Bravo, former MP for Nottingham South, says re-nationalisation of key industries is not the answer

THE cost of electricity, rising rail fares, and the part-sale of the Royal Mail have reopened for many the whole question of public and private ownership of our major services.

Those who favour state ownership claim that we, the public, would own these services – and would therefore have a say in these vital matters, and achieve lower costs than private providers, who inevitably seek to make a profit.

Would it were as simple as that.

One has to be at least 45 years of age to have any conscious or practical experience of life in this country when most services were run by the state.

Back then, the first task of a Chancellor of the Exchequer was to see how much he needed to raise tax to cover the cost of running nationalised industries, and – more importantly – finding additional money to invest in necessary modernisation and upgrading such services.

With the passage of time, perhaps the hope is that the ever-declining proportion of the population old enough to remember those days will allow the myth of how good things were to take hold.

Our water industry was Victorian in age, and what you couldn't see you didn't need to worry about.

That is why governments did very little and only after de-nationalisation did the industry begin to make up for decades of neglect.

The same applied to British Rail, with carriages that should long have been taken for scrap, and infrastructure clearly inadequate and perhaps downright dangerous.

British Electricity had to buy coal at inflated prices, simply passing the higher cost on to consumers who had no choice or alternatives.

We are told on the one hand that there is insufficient competition in the energy industry, yet in the same breath there are some dream of bringing it back into public ownership, where there is no choice at all.

All these industries operated at the behest of politicians, and frankly most had little or no experience of running any major enterprise.

The best we can hope for is that sensible, enforceable regulation protects the public interest and allows these industries to get on with the job with the minimum of political interference.

Of course, these changes were not easy, and have caused much disruption and personal distress, but things could not continue as they were.

Change is rarely without pain, but in the end one can look back and accept the decision for change was right for the country's future.

Comments

Mr Brandon-Bravo, why do you think it is that nodody has ever seriously listened to a word you have said? Oh yes, we can most certainly go back to nationalised rail system. And hopefull you can go back to where you've been hiding for the past ten years.